Riled KCR trying to conceal KLIP fiasco, says Shabbir Ali

Hyderabad: Advisor to Telangana Government Mohammed Ali Shabbir accused former CM K Chandrasekhar Rao of trying to hide his failures in the Kaleshwaram project and remained upset as the clock is ticking. Anxious about the possible trouble he would be facing following PC Ghose commission’s report, the former Minister said KCR rushed to court even before the Commission’s report was presented in the Assembly for a debate.

Speaking to media at Gandhi Bhavan after a ‘Face to Face with People’ programme, Shabbir Ali said KCR’s rushing to court vindicates that there were major irregularities in the project. He pointed out that Justice Ghose had conducted a 15-month investigation into the Kaleshwaram project, questioning politicians, experts, engineers, bureaucrats and even central agencies. “The Commission clearly stated that several mistakes were committed. The project had no approval from the Cabinet, no clearance from the Central Water Commission, and no permission from the National Dam Safety Authority. Nothing was followed, yet KCR went ahead with his own orders. Even in the old Nizam era, such mismanagement was not witnessed. KCR issued orders like ‘Farmaan’ to waste public money of over Rs 1.10 lakh crore,” he said.

He announced that the Commission’s findings would soon be placed before the Assembly for a detailed discussion. “Once the debate is held, KCR will have to face the consequences. The Congress Government will not spare anyone responsible for this scam,” he asserted. Responding to BJP’s criticism, Shabbir Ali said the classification of Muslims as Backward Classes was not new. “Historically, several committees and commissions identified sections of the Muslim community as socially and educationally backward. The Hunter Commission in the 1880s and the Miller Committee in 1918 highlighted this. After Independence, the first Backward Classes Commission under Kaka Kalelkar (1953–55) listed many Muslim occupational groups such as weavers, butchers, and cotton cleaners as backward,” he said.

He pointed out that many states had included Muslims in OBC lists well before the Mandal Commission.

Tamil Nadu did so in 1951, Kerala in 1957, Karnataka in the 1960s–70s, and Andhra Pradesh in 1968. The Mandal Commission later estimated that about 8.4% of India’s OBC population came from non-Hindu minorities, including Muslims. When its recommendations were implemented in the 1990s, several Muslim groups were added to the Central OBC list. The Supreme Court, in the Indra Sawhney case of 1992, also upheld that backward groups within any religion could be classified as OBCs, making this constitutionally valid.